The Rape Trial on Trial in Canada : Legislation: A bill to be introduced aims to protect alleged victims from defense lawyers intent on discrediting their versions of assaults.

At a time of heightened consciousness in Canada about violence toward women, the government is planning to revise this country’s laws governing the conduct of rape trials.

The Canadian Department of Justice says it will introduce a “rape-shield” bill in the House of Commons before it adjourns Dec. 13 for Christmas. Rape-shield laws aim to protect alleged rape victims from defense lawyers intent on discrediting their versions of assaults.

The issue pits a woman’s right to privacy against a defendant’s right to a fair trial. And it comes at a time of intensified interest in violence toward women in Canada.

Canadians are watching newscasts from the Florida trial of William Kennedy Smith every evening, and date rape has become a hot topic here.

In addition, Friday was the second anniversary of the “Montreal massacre” that cost the lives of 14 female students at a Montreal engineering school who were singled out by a deranged gunman.

While the precise content of the forthcoming bill is not yet known, Canadian women’s groups have been lobbying hard for members of the federal Parliament to spell out exactly what constitutes “consent” to sexual activity.

The feminist organizations say that if consent were well defined, then accused male assailants could no longer argue that a woman had “asked for it” by dressing provocatively or accompanying a man to his apartment after dinner or a movie.

“What we’re talking about is a law that says ‘no’ means no and ‘yes’ means yes, and before you initiate sexual contact, it’s your responsibility to find out whether it’s yes or no,” said Judy Rebick, head of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, in a recent news conference on the expected bill.

The women’s groups also hope that, if men are required to prove that there was consent before an act of intercourse, it will be that much tougher for them to argue that an expedition into a woman’s sexual history might be relevant to the case at hand.

“Feminist groups are calling for no use of past sexual history, period,” said Bonnie Agnew of the Canadian Assn. of Sexual Assault Centers, a Vancouver organization. “I don’t care how you make it constitutional, just make it constitutional.”

But the prospect of a new rape-shield law has dismayed criminal-defense lawyers, who worry that it could compromise defendants’ rights to a fair trial.

“You’re going to need a witness and have a conference call with your lawyers” before initiating sexual contact, said Brian Greenspan, president of the Canadian Criminal Lawyers Assn.

“To suggest we’re going to change the way people relate to one another by virtue of the criminal law is absurd,” he added. He said that, as a 45-year-old male, he feels that his entire generation could technically be deemed sexual offenders under the law if Canada goes ahead with the kind of legislation women’s groups contemplate.

Canadian feminists began pressing for a new rape-shield law in August, after the country’s Supreme Court struck down provisions of a statute that had proscribed virtually any inquiry into a woman’s sexual resume. The court found that the prohibition was too broad and infringed on a defendant’s ability to present a complete defense.

The Supreme Court then set out a narrower doctrine under which women could be made to testify about their personal habits.

Under these rules, judges have the discretion to admit evidence of a rape victim’s sexual history if it can be shown that the evidence is crucial for the accused’s defense. The court also upheld a section of the law that prohibits defense lawyers from introducing a rape victim’s “sexual reputation” in hopes of impeaching her testimony.

In the United States, rape-shield laws enacted by most states allow defense counsel to use the sexual history of the accuser in court--but only if the judge is alerted in advance and rules that the evidence is relevant. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld such laws in May, contending that they balance the rights of accuser and accused.

Civil libertarians and defense lawyers here say such rules are satisfactory and argue that there is little reason to tamper with them.

“On a practical level, rape shield (still) exists in Canada in accordance with very strict guidelines,” Greenspan said. “We just don’t define (consent) the way (feminists) want it defined, that’s all.”

Feminists counter, however, that most judges in Canada are men and that many appear to harbor sexist attitudes toward women.

They tell of judges letting off sex offenders with light sentences--or no penalties at all--because they were members of minority groups with cultural mores of their own, because they were good “family men” holding down jobs or because they had already “suffered enough” just by being in court.

In one celebrated instance, a circuit judge in the Northwest Territories was said to have told a newspaper reporter, “The majority of rapes in the Northwest Territories occur when a woman is drunk and passed out. A man comes along and sees a pair of hips and helps himself. That contrasts sharply to the cases I dealt with before (in southern Canadian courts), of the dainty co-ed who gets jumped from behind.”

The judge said his comments were misconstrued. But they fueled feminists’ arguments that women will inevitably be stereotyped in the courtroom and thus merit procedural protections.

The rape-shield controversy is part of a broader concern for the welfare of women in Canada. The Toronto Star, as part of a recent series headlined “The War Against Women,” detailed the deaths of 49 women who were killed by men this year in Ontario. Still more women in the report were described as having died mysteriously, but no suspects were named.

For the past week, Canadians commemorated the anniversary of the “Montreal massacre” by wearing white ribbons on their lapels. But even as deans were trying to persuade male students to wear the ribbons at Humber College in Toronto, a female student was raped in broad daylight in front of a campus dormitory.

Soon after the August Supreme Court ruling, women’s groups drafted new rape-shield legislation and took it to Canada’s justice minister, Kim Campbell.

In a news conference, they expressed surprise and delight that the justice minister seemed to agree with their views.

“It is important that victims of (sexual) assault are not inhibited by a system that is there to serve them,” Campbell said.